Petals
by NessieGG
Summary: The petals can all fall. [Haji x Saya.] [Vignettes.] [Oneshot.]


_Author's Notes: A collection of vignettes reflecting on Haji and Saya's unique relationship and their feelings toward one another. Spoilers for various episodes, mainly episode 22 and the ending of the series._

Disclaimer: I do not own Blood+ and am making no profit from this fan fiction.

**Petals**

By Nessie

He meets her as a boy and feels the importance of it, the vitality, and he guards himself against it for fear that this woman with eyes like dark pools will completely possess him. He is afraid, not of her, but of the realization that it no longer matters that he was simply bought for scientific experimentation although that will serve as an excuse later on.

He is a child, and he learns through her the way fledglings learn how to fly. But she is no mother bird to him, and he has certainly never been a son to her. Haji grows knowing a spoiled mind that gentles around him, memorizes the image of the world's most perfect smile that could only belong to Saya.

It is that day when she tries to teach him to play the cello that he lets all of the frustration out. It is a difficult thing to be so young and know that one is bound to another through both rules and fate. Decades older, Haji can still remember the feel of her arms around his smaller shoulders, smell the warm scent of haystacks on a rainy afternoon, and see the rose he brought her placed lovingly in a vase for her to look upon.

He can still hear her tell him that she will take him all over the world with her.

* * *

And they do see the world. Saya recalls snowy woods and smoky fires, nights spent in caves while he plays for her the songs of their past. It is always Haji, Saya, and the sword. There are battles, and their search to find Diva never halts. But there are moments stolen between the beams of the mood and the ray of the sun that they spend knowing only each other.

Winters in Africa, springs in Europe, autumns in Australia, and finally the summer in Asia.

"Saya. Fight."

They are the only words of his that she desperately longs for, and without them, she feels nothing. Haji's bandaged hand is a painful reminder of what she has done, and the taste of his blood is a loathsome one of what he must do.

"Fight."

Those words are even more important to her than the ones he never says.

* * *

He sees her as she takes down man and beast, watches without judgment while sprays of blood wash over her like cleansing rain. Anything is better than the glow of the fires that took away their home.

But she is like a china doll, and each powerful slash of her sword adds another inch to the crack in her heart. It is only a matter of time, he is sure, before she breaks in two.

And Haji has sworn to be there. Chevalier he may be, but he was first her friend. And now…

He is there when George Otonashi takes her to his home in Okinawa. His eyes are all-seeing and there is a certain degree of malcontent in his heart when she is placed within the dark walls of the shrine. But when she awakens and Haji sees George teach his Saya the smile of those who are truly happy, he knows that it is not his place to disagree.

He has never been able to teach Saya anything the way she has taught him everything.

* * *

Saya looks at him and does not know him, this man in black with his concealed hand and his lovely music. Nothing about him is recognizable but for his eyes. His eyes tell her a great many things she does not understand, and the touch of his kiss is accompanied by an unmistakable memory.

She trusts him almost immediately, despite how much he frightens her at the beginning. He clutches her and feeds her blood and she feels a change...no, a _return_.

Memories flood and she wants to know why with them comes a sense of reassurance that as long as he is there… As long as this quiet man with his long hair and his black tie is there, nothing can go wrong.

She takes his hand, and blood-drops fall like petals.

* * *

He is silent, as usual, as he watches her with the one she calls brother, Kai. They sit on a night-lit beach and he says something to reassure her, dry her tears, and adds to her smile. The smile he cannot give her.

But he has come to tear all of it away, for Saya made him promise. It is their promise, and when she finally awakens to the truth behind her existence, there will be loss and pain and sorrow felt all over again like stabbings from glass shards.

Haji swears to be there as well. As the one who serves her, and more.

* * *

She loses – not the overall battle, but other things. Her father and Riku, the Schiff she called friends, and finally Diva – the only true sister she ever had. The one she both hated and loved.

But she has gained as well. Two nieces, the children of her brother and her sister, smile and laugh at her while her tears fall over them. But she must now destroy them, for they do not belong, _she _does not belong…

But then it is Haji who tells her what to do, and for once it is not to fight.

"Saya."

His touch his warm. It has always been so, so warm.

"Live."

Tears overflow and she has to hold onto him to keep from being crushed down by the monstrous force of her emotions. Kisses and embraces are all she has to look forward to, however.

More than once she has unwillingly accepted destiny.

* * *

"I love you."

He speaks the words and witnesses the event; her heart breaks, as he always knew it would one day. But he had truthfully never thought that he might be the cause.

Haji sends her a smile, and he sees water glisten like gems in the corner of his beloved's eyes. Those eyes again. The dark pools that taught him and drowned him and killed him and revived him. That person.

_Saya._

She is imprinted on his soul and stays there when the building collapses and takes him with it.

* * *

Saya is tired, and with the exhaustion comes an ache she has been trying to ignore. She can see her friends and smile, knowing that the day has been won and that the night shall be safe. Loss and gain mean nothing in the face of the realization that he – Haji, the person that has been her only true constant – is gone.

It feels like an immortal flower is greeting the winter at last, and she can tell that all of her petals have been stripped bare. Her eyes close, and she can see them – fluttering in the breeze, all of them memories that are scattered by the wind.

_Haji…_

* * *

He has and will wait for thirty years. Thirty years is nothing to him, even though the past four may have seemed entirely too long to her. The thought of what it will be like makes him smile. A world without fighting, where together he and Saya will live. It is…unexpected, and part of him feels as disconcerted as he had upon first meeting her.

But he knows that after so long, she deserves this. _They _deserve this.

So he places a pink rose upon the place where she rests, and he will watch over her as he has all their lives. The loving shade signifies both his feelings for her and the hope she carries within her heart. The hope she has taught him.

The petals can all fall.

And they will still be there. Together.

**The End**


End file.
